Nehalem, Wheeler, and Manzanita are the least touristy of all the north coast cities. On the same day that Seaside will have thousands of people on the promenade, Nehalem will be entirely shut down. As hundreds of RVs descend on various Lincoln City attractions, the big news in Wheeler will be that someone caught a 20" crab. In other words, this area of our state has yet to be discovered by anyone that drives a Cadillac Escalade.
The above coordinates will take you to a cute little city square between a really kickin' restaurant and some public restrooms. I utilize both places whenever kayaking in the area, although i usually launch from about 2 miles down the river.
Anyway, there's a little bench here. Note the year of Kathleen's death and call it Z.
The final coordinates to the cache are as follows:
N 45 43.(Z-1627)
W 123 53.(Z-1727)
The cache is a clear squarish rubbermaid container with a blue lid. If you don't have your own watercraft, there are numerous places along the river that will rent you one. If you're charming, you can bribe or cajole a local to take you where you need to go.
I placed the cache about an hour after the tide crested, so the following advice may be of absolutely no use to you: approach from the northern tip of the island. Also, geocaching.com rates this cache as a 3/5, but i've done harder ones that were rated lower, so i'm sticking by my 2.5/4.5 rating. Coverage is spotty, but i sat there for 15 minutes or so, so i think the coords should be pretty close.
UPDATE 1/23/05: Honestly, I haven't visited this cache since early august of '04. It's obviously still there, but it's probably a good idea to read the logs before searching this one as it's on the difficult side of things.